Xantus, Janos:

$6,750 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

UTAZAS KALIFORNIA DELI RESZEIBEN. Hungarian Janos Xantus was one of the pioneering ornithologists of California. The present book is the second of two Hungarian publications by Xantus, providing an account of his travels in California and Baja. The other volume, LEVELEI EJSZAKAMERIKABOL..., was also published in Budapest (in 1858) and describes his travels throughout the United States. Howes calls that volume, edited by the "incompetent" Istvan Prepost, an "unauthorized" edition of Xantus' letters describing his travels in North America. The letters in this volume focus on California, Baja and Alta, and provide descriptions of California's geology and climate, native Indians, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Fernando, Mojave, Fort Tejon, and several places in Baja, including La Paz and Loreto. The plates show Mission San Fernando, Indians working in a blacksmith shop at the mission, a female Indian working a loom, Indians at Tejon, a vista of the Sierra Nevada, a view of a large terraced building at La Jolla, and more. The map shows California from San Francisco south to the tip of Baja.Involved in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Xantus came to the U.S. at the end of 1851 as a political refugee and worked as a topographer on the Pacific Railroad Survey, then as a member of the U.S. Coast Survey. He was stationed in California during the coastal survey, and while there made valuable collections of birds for the Smithsonian Institution, including many new species, some of whi

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